Red Threads

Leela has hated Red all her life.

Well, most of it.

A bride's attire, the setting sun, ketchup, tomatoes, everything made in red, she hated with a passion. Her parents thought she was one of those girls trying to stand out in the crowd saying things like, "All the girls like Pink (with her, Red). Am I the only one who doesn't like Pink?" She was happy they bothered to ask if she was going through that phase, where according to them, youngsters do such things to draw attention.

How she wished that were true.

Her hatred for the color has been so ever since she visited that ruined, abandoned temple deep down at the foot of a cliff when she was eight years old. Her family had planned for an unknown-location vacation then, driving off to greener land with lush trees.

"Let's go to places we don't know," her dad said. "It'd be fun," he said.

If she could go back in time, she would have punched some sense in his head with her fists.

Amog, the event manager whose office is on the third floor, while Leela's gym is on the fifth, was fidgeting with his coffee cup, eyes not meeting hers.

"Leela, there's something I want to tell you," he said.

"I know. That's exactly what you texted me a few hours ago." She was not a fan of the virtue of patience, more so of awkwardness.

Leela smelt the whiff of musk floating into her nose from the other side of the table. It wasn't the fragrance Amog wore daily. His shirt was crisp and neat. The crisp a fabric possesses only once in its lifetime. The crisp of a new cloth yet to be washed with detergent. The crisp of cloth only a newly bought shirt can have. The red ink of his four-year-old tattoo peeked from his collar again and again with every movement he made.

Her eye twitched in irritation.

"Yeah. You see....it's been two years since we became friends."

Why is this boy panting like he's lifting weights?

"And?" She asked, rolling her right index finger, prompting him to get to the point.

"I've always felt we could be more....?"

"More what?" She stared down at his palms, and then at his car from the cafe's window.

"I mean, we've hung out a lot, and I'm the only person who understands you better than anyone else. You've done the same for me too. Even our families like each other."

He wasn't the 'only' person who understood her. Nobody understood her, including him. She never wanted anyone to. She especially despised it when anyone told her they understood her.

"You want my parents to adopt you or something? Do you want to become my sibling by legal procedures?" she asked plainly.

"No! No, I don't- oh God, no. Okay, here goes nothing. I think I'm in love with you, and I'd like to marry you."

And he ended up just like the others. Because of boys like Amog, Leela was called a heartbreaker. In all unseen honesty, Leela was never one. It's not her fault they got the wrong message and met with disappointment later.

If you build your heart with fantasies and false hope, it is bound to break by itself. No help from a heartbreaker is ever needed.

"I see," she yawned.

His shoulders slouched. "That's all you have to say?"

"Obvi, Amog. First things first, I never saw you as a man, which leads to the second, but most important point. I don't want to marry you."

"Then why did you get close to me and pretend as if you understood my problems? Why did you accept me for who I am?" His eyes swirled with sadness and a hue of something waiting to burst. She knew what it was going to be. This has happened to her many times after all.

"Let's do a fact-checking session. I never got close to you. I was just there. You were the one who showed up to my gym almost every day, never working out but instead trying to chat me up. You were the one who opened up about your insecurities, and I was just there. I listened to you and offered you juice sometimes only because you were on the verge of sobbing. You're not understanding the situation you're in. Whatever you think this is, it's all in your head."

"Then why did you lie to me saying I'm not fat? You've been playing me. Girls like you do this shit because you just want all the attention yourselves. You think you're some savior but you're just rotten."

People were starting to stare and whisper among themselves, looking at her judgingly.

'Idiots. I am surrounded by idiots,' Leela thought while rolling her eyes.

"You're the only one who thinks you're fat, you dumb animal. Your body is big, is all. That's it! Those are all bones, not fat. When I say I don't think you're not fat, I mean it. I own gyms you little shit. I was the ace of the Sports and Exercise Science department at university. I know about body fitness more than you ever will. I didn't play you; you've been spending too much time in your thought bubble. You're not meant for me. You're meant for someone else."

She looked at Amog's car again, while he sat dumbfounded by rejection as cold as a stale roti. The annoying thread tied to his pinky finger stretched to the passenger's seat in his car.

Leela confirmed loudly. "You brought Sowmya with you, and she's waiting for you in your car, yes; but under the heat of the sun."

"It's not what you think, Leela."

It is exactly what Leela thinks. And knows.

"Sowmya and I are just friends. We've been so from childhood." Amog reassures her, but how could she tell him it's not about the reassurance?

"I don't like you Amog. I never have, and I never will. You have misunderstood my feelings of friendship for romance. You are an adult. Behave like one."

"Look, if this is about Sowmya, then-"

"Then what? You'll cut ties with her? Throw her off of your life like a used water bottle?"

"No! I wouldn't! She's always been with me in both good and hard times. She seldom talks about her problems, while you speak your mind without fear...."

'So he does feel the pull with her, though it's not much,' Leela thought.

The first time Leela met her, she knew right away when she saw Amog's red thread tied to Sowmya's finger. Sowmya silently cherished Amog in the way sea waves rise to the full moon, wishing it will come down to embrace its waters someday.

Unrequited love is such a beautiful but sad thing.

Now for some reason, Amog was looking down at his car too, with a strange, faintly longing face.

'I must have made the pull. Maybe now he'll realize who he's meant to be with,' Leela sighed with relief.

"Don't compare me with Sowmya. We're not the same. Now that you've heard yourself a clear rejection, I'm gonna leave. I've dealt with people like you for more than a decade. If you try and approach me with the same intention next time, I'll drag your ass to the police station for sexual harassment and defamation."

Leela never made threats. She only made promises.

"Fine. I'm so sorry for this whole....thing. I just thought you were the one for me. I thought we felt the same for each other."

"Don't just think, Amog. Ask. Learn. Understand. Acknowledge. It's not the end of the world. All it takes is a little effort and patience to find the one for you. That person is not me."

"I understand now, sort of. I'm sorry for making you uncomfortable." He hung his head, gently fidgeting with the belt of the watch Sowmya gifted him a few days ago on his birthday.

At least he wasn't as toxic and obsessive as the previous male abominations she encountered in her life. Amog was a true gentleman, though a dorky one.

"I accept your apology. If that is all, I'm gonna bounce," Leela said and got up to leave when Amog stopped her.

She halted but didn't turn around to fully look at him.

"Leela, do you believe in soulmates?" Amog asked, looking at Sowmya from the window, who stepped out of the car as she sighed like Atlas threw the Earth on her shoulders.

"Bro you'd lose your marbles if you saw what I've been seeing my whole life,' Leela scoffed in her mind.

She was literally amidst a messy....well, mess, of red threads all over the place.

Red threads, red threads, here and there. Red threads, red threads, everywhere.

"I think so. Bye," And left Leela feeling annoyed and a little anxious.

Because she didn't just think so. Leela knew. Leela believed. Because it was real.

Leela has been harboring a secret nobody knows.

A secret, budded in her ever since she chanced upon that abandoned temple, ever since she prayed at that ancient place, but hey. Temples are temples, right? You see a temple, you gotta pray(according to her mother).

Little Leela slipped and fell down the cliff but thanks to the thick trees, survived the fall with a bleeding head and a broken arm. Her parents were at the top, yelling for her, and when they saw her safe(alive) down there, they yelled again, saying they're coming down to get her and she should not even budge.

Behind her, she saw a temple. A small one, but it was a temple all right. So she stepped in and prayed for her parents to be safe and not fall tumbling down like stupid Jack and Jill who went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, and like her for obvious reasons.

And that's how she accidentally found a certain Goddess' temple. And accidentally summoned her. And accidentally impressed her. Then accidentally pissed her off.

As soon as Leela prayed earnestly with a child's pure love and innocence for the safety of her parents, also apologizing because she didn't know which God or Goddess this temple belonged to but they have to help her, a woman adorned in jewels and a heavy, beautiful red saree appeared behind Leela. She was awestruck by this woman's beauty so much that no word came out of her mouth for a few seconds.

"What's crackalackin?" The woman asked her with enthusiasm and paused instantly when she saw Leela's bleeding head and her broken hand.

"When I said what's crackalackin, I didn't mean it literally because a bone has been cracked in your arm. You're the little child who asked for your parents' safety....while you look like a stool-sized stunt double from an action movie? Wowza look at the injuries on you."

Now Leela became suspicious.

"How did you know what I was praying for? I didn't even say it out loud." Leela was a fan of Detective Conan. Still is.

The pretty woman threw her a -_- look.

"I heard you because you were talking to me. Hello, you were praying to me?"

The woman pointed to the temple's idol, which wasn't visible because of the accumulated webs, dust, and the dusk of the sky.

"I was praying to a God," Leela asserted.

"Let me stop you right there, child. Correction, Goddess. Not God. I'm that Goddess. Look at me. Look at this outfit. I put extra care in the saree plaits too. Feels good to get out of your pajamas and dress up after centuries. Look at this golden light emanating from behind me. You don't see that behind any normal human. I'm a Goddess and you're not even surprised. Kids these days, seriously."

Leela now had too much information to digest.

"You wear pajamas?" Leela asked her.

"Have you ever worn heavy, traditional dresses in your house every day, including jewelry?

Even while you sleep?" The woman asked.

"No," said Leela.

"Exactly," the woman replied.

"Since when do Hindu Gods-"

The woman threw her a warning look.

"Okay, since when do Hindu Goddesses speak English?"

"Since it was made by humans. Duh."

"You don't speak like the Goddesses in movies. They use ancient dialect."

"This is the twenty-first century. You gotta go with the flow. That's something these actresses who play mythological characters don't do in movies."

"Why are you wearing a saree then?"

"Excuse me? First rule of business, young lady. Presentation is everything. Since you're a kid, I can go easy on myself. Gimme a sec."

Leela was shocked. Before her very eyes, the jewelry and the weird light from behind her vanished. The woman's saree transformed into a red shirt and a pair of blue jeans.

Leela began to think it was the head injury that was causing her to imagine things.

"Are you a kidnapper?" Leela asked.

"Bold of you to assume you're worth kidnapping."

"Good point. But if you are a Goddess and not some fraud...."

"Fraud?! Where have you been learning such words?" The woman/Goddess threw her hands in the air.

"Let me finish! If you're a Goddess, please make sure my parents come here safe and sound to take me."

"Interesting. I'm surprised you're not asking me to take you to them. As you have prayed to me for a wish, I could have sent you to the top of the cliff in the blink of an eye. But you want your parents to come and take you, and you ask me for their safety?"

"They told me not to move. I should listen to them."

"Wow, sure. Anyway, thanks."

"Why are you thanking me? If you are who you say you are, and if you're keeping my parents safe, I should be the one thanking you."

"You're right, but you see, nobody has prayed for me in a long, long time. It's mostly my husband who is sought after."

"Who is your husband? Is he here?"

The woman laughed.

"My husband is Manmatha. You probably don't know him, but here he's the God of love. He's busy making people fall in love with his arrows or whatever. I think he's using bullets and guns these days. You know, keeping up with technology and stuff."

This perked Leela's interest.

"He's Cupid?" She asked.

"That dude belongs to the regional department of Greece. I'm not sure if Manmatha is Cupid, or is like Cupid. Gods and Goddesses are very mysterious," the woman shrugged.

"Who are you then?" asked Leela, more curious.

"I'm Rati, the Goddess of love, passion, and lust. It's half nice to meet you."

"It's half....nice to meet you too. By the way, what is lust?"

"Good question. What is taking your parents so long? They're having a smooth journey back here and yet they're delaying their arrival." Rati knew Leela's parents were on their way down the cliff, safe and sound, but she had to dodge her question so she had to lie.

"You know how to weave a good story, auntie. I almost believed you're a Goddess," Leela said, thinking she was smart. She was always smart. But not this time.

"Auntie? Auntie?! All this eternal, youthful beauty and I'm called auntie?! Worst of all, you still don't believe me?"

Just then, Leela's parents appeared at a distance and ran to their daughter, but Leela hadn't noticed them yet. Rati did.

"Oh, child of mine, you need a little punishment, plus a gift because you worshipped me even if it was for a short while. You have both, moved and crossed me. This is going to be more fun than any TV show. I'm gonna need a lot of popcorn at home."

Leela didn't know what she had signed up to, for being rude to a Goddess.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"I mean,” Goddess Rati leaned and kissed her forehead. "This."

The Goddess smiled at the ignorant child.

"I'll always be watching over you for the fun from your punishment, and your protection. Your parents are here."

Leela looked at them while Rati bid her farewell.

"Take care, Leela."

Leela was stunned. "How did you know my-"

She was talking to air when she turned to look at the woman. "....name?"

That's when Leela knew she met a real Goddess. That's when she knew she screwed up.

"Shit."

And that was also the first time she cussed because she began to see things nobody else could.

Her parents each had a red thread tied to their fingers. Her father's thread was so long, it led through the height of the cliff and beyond.

They hugged and kissed Leela, telling her how sorry they were, but all Leela could focus on was the threads.

"Why did you tie these threads to yourselves? You're wasting so much yarn. It'll be hard to untangle them if they get tied up."

The parents looked at each other for a second, and then at Leela, and cried more. They rushed to the hospital. The doctor examined her brain. She had no major injuries to the head, but her left hand had a fracture. Her brain was perfect and pristine like always. They said she was saying weird things about threads because she was probably traumatized from the fall.

Leela couldn't do the stupid thing of telling these extremely educated and logic-driven professionals that she met a goddess who punished her with the ability to see threads tied to people and the entire planet was covered with it.

She watched too many movies to understand that if she kept up with this without any evidence, she'd be thrown in an asylum.

She threw this skeleton in her closet after a few days.

Leela slowly realized these threads connected to people who were meant to be with each other, or in other words, soulmates.

But her heart dropped in sadness and shock when she saw that her parents' threads were not connected, but led elsewhere. Her mother's thread was cut off completely, meaning her soulmate was dead. Her father's soulmate was someone else, somewhere else. She later found out that her father loved another woman but couldn't marry her because her paternal grandparents were racists, and unfortunately, so were her maternal ones. They were worse. They killed the man her mother loved for the same reason they didn't let her father marry the woman he loved.

Leela didn't know if she should feel scared or disgusted. So she allowed herself to feel both and vowed to never become like them. Sometimes this ability was a good thing. She could help people meet with their destined ones by fabricating little coincidences that led to love. She realized one doesn't recognize their soulmate unless they have a little push and effort, unless, someone plays Cupid, or in this case, Manmatha.

When Leela graduated from university, she went to visit the same temple in hopes that a certain lady wearing a red shirt and mom jeans would show up from behind her and forgive her, but there was no avail. It's been 4 years. She's been visiting the temple regularly, despite not following any religion for that matter, she has cleaned it too. She got a little gist from her encounter when she was a child that Goddess Rati enjoys having fun and witnessing drama, so she also filled a pen drive with Korean TV shows and laid it at the idol's feet in hopes of forgiveness because food offerings didn't seem like a great idea. Leela knew Goddess Rati was feminist and pretty much updated With the human world's technology just by the way she spoke. When Leela was back at the temple the next month, She saw that the pen drive had vanished, but her punishment didn't.

That wasn't the only headache she had. Everyone had a red thread leading somewhere or the other, in a straight line. Even her mother's thread was red despite being cut off.

But dear Leela's thread of fate was a shiny golden color, leading high into the skies, beyond the clouds. Somewhere in the heavenly abode, Rati and Manmatha were having a conversation about Leela.

"There must be a purpose as to why this child happened to be the one to call out to you. This child with a golden thread," Manmatha told Rati.

"The only thing I know is that she was born with a golden thread. That is all. That means there is also someone who was born tied to the thread. You know what this means right?" Rati asked her husband.

"Of course I do. The golden thread represents the purity of two souls from their previous lives. The thread delivers a burning pain to the person who tries to engage with someone else other than their soulmate. These two were very good people in their past life. Equally good, and equally uncorrupt. You only see them once or twice in a century."

"That also means we have a problem," Rati frowned.

"I know that too," Manmatha sighed. "The golden thread can be vague on so many things. It travels through the highest of skies and stays hung in gravity even when one of them dies, unlike the red ones. The poor child can't even pull the thread because it is permeable to humans. Goes right through the touch. All she can do is wait for fate to play out."

"But will it?"

"If it's written, it will. Coming to you, my dear wife, seems the humans are indulging in your praise even as they sin."

That made Goddess Rati very angry.

"Listen well, husband. I am the Goddess of passion and carnal desire, not rape. They are very different things. Fate does not regularly come to the rescue. Humans are given a choice to pick, and they can always choose not to sin, but they take that path anyway and are met with bad karma. If not on earth, then in the underworld."

"I believe I have struck a nerve." Manmatha was a devout husband but like every other man, he tended to assume without confirmation.

"Blame me for someone else's troubles and I'll have to strike more than a nerve on you, husband," Rati spoke, this time not looking at him.

"My apologies, my love. Would you like me to chat with you for a while longer or shall I leave you alone?" He asked.

"Please let me be. You're always nice, I agree. But you're nicer when you've made a mistake. I do not want that. You've made me upset. I shall talk to you later. Do not be bothered by me."

Manmatha was the God of love, but why was it that he messed it up with his beloved wife almost every time?

And back down on Earth, Leela was trying her best not to care about the golden thread. Over the years, she had tried everything, and everything failed. She tried making out with men. Her body felt immense pain like she was thrown into fire. She tried making out with women, and the same happened. She was the only one who was bound to this fate. She knew she couldn't touch the threads, let alone tug at them. Sometimes she cried thinking the person meant for her was already in heaven. Sometimes she thought she didn't have a soulmate at all and that she was destined to live her whole life alone.

The Goddess kept her word, as Leela never faced any serious trouble in her life. Though she once ended up with the wrong crowd and got framed for something she never did, she was miraculously proven innocent in a short time. No matter how hard she fell from the stairs, she only got minor scratches or injuries. People began to consider her hard as steel in heart and body.

She was a good student and a good daughter, but an ice-cold businesswoman. Leela was a fitness instructor as well as the owner of a chain of gyms with the perfect affluent life any woman would want. But sometimes, just sometimes, she thought of offering all her hard-earned fortune up to Goddess Rati, asking her to take away this punishment and help her meet the other person bound to the golden thread. She tried praying, but through the years, she lost her child-like innocence and deep commitment to divinity, and so the Goddess never appeared because she wasn't some pizza delivery boy who'd show up anywhere within 30 minutes with a simple phone call. She was scared at times thinking she has to live alone all her life. It wasn't a bad idea, but she wanted to know why these things had to happen to her.

So she came up with a plan.

She would attempt suicide by jumping off the building, and if Rati shows up in time, she would confront her or she was going to go to heaven, find Rati, and ask her what she did to deserve this great of a punishment. Just when she was about to leap, Rati showed up in front of her, this time in red pajamas, a sleeping mask pushed over her head, and a pair of flip-flops with cherry prints.

"Oh, so you won't show up unless I'm about to die?" Leela asked the sleepy Goddess.

"Yeah, good afternoon to you too. What you were gonna do was very reckless. I mean, didn't even have time to rub some sunscreen on my face."

"Are you serious right now?"

"Duh. What's wrong?"

"Everything."

"Says you with a job, money, fame, and respect on this land, standing on top of a building you own an apartment in. One of the buildings you own apartments in. Nobody even remembers my existence here, and I'm getting blamed for the mistakes you humans commit. Trust me, you got everything you need, girl."

"That's not enough, Rati."

"Wow, you put me on the first-name-basis list? The guts of this child-"

"It hurts to see so many people not meet with their loved ones even when they're so close."

Rati knew that feeling better than anyone else. The girl had seen too much. No, she wasn't a girl anymore, Leela was a woman now. Leela forced herself to become a woman from a child long ago at the age of 10 as she learned about her parents' past.

"Oh, well....it will pass," Rati's Lie did nothing to make Leela feel better.

"This is not my period to let it do its thing until it passes. These are people's fates. They're unhappy with the wrong person and think it's their fault that they're not happy. I want to go tell them it's because they're not with their soulmate, but that would be stupid. So I have come to make a bargain with you."

Rati was not sure if she'd like what Leela had to say next. She didn't have a good feeling about this.

"Sure, let's hear it," Rati said with reluctance.

"Relieve me of my punishment, or take my life," Leela said looking into Rati's eyes with unwavering determination.

"But darling, who will come to me if I relieve you from your punishment? Who will pray to me? Who will talk to me about how their daily life is while they clean the temple? Who will offer me more Korean serials?"

"So you did take the pen drive huh? I thought someone stole it."

"That's a dumb thought. I'm a Goddess. I can watch any show anywhere. You were stupid to think a pen drive would move me."

Leela was slightly embarrassed.

"Anyway, make the choice. My punishment, or my life," Leela said.

Goddess Rati was almost tempted to let her have her way and die. That way, she could at least have company up there. But things don't always go the way we want them to. If they do, it's not a fun Life.

"I'm still waiting for the million-dollar question, or should I say, the golden question?" Rati asked, looking intently at the thread tied to Leela.

Leela's stomach sank. She wanted to know but she didn't want to know. What if the answer is too much for her to take? What will she do then?

"Is....is this person alive?"

"I don't know."

"You're a Goddess."

"Yes, that means there are things I should say and things I should not.

"Okay, I don't care about this thread anyway."

"Sure," Rati smirked.

"So? Just take my punishment away. I've been suffering too much from this for more than a decade. Please," Leela begged her. "I will not stop coming to your temple. Nothing will change. You don't have to take the pain and show up before me ever again Just take it away from me. I'm sorry for not believing you in the beginning. I have always believed in you ever since you vanished that day when my parents came for me. I won't lie saying I worshipped you, but I can say that I always had faith in you. Not because you're a goddess, but because you're a strong woman. A fun one too."

The words 'strong' and 'fun' felt like a melody in Rati's ears.

"Is that so? Never, ever attempt to take your life again or I’ll make sure you'll find no entry in hell or heaven."

And with that said, Rati vanished.

A year passed, then two. Leela's ability never vanished. She kept seeing the threads. Sometimes, she would make out with random people in clubs, just to feel the pain and secretly hope that the other prisoner of this thread would feel the same if they were even alive. Her parents kept introducing her to prospective grooms for a few months but it all stopped when she told them she would not end up like them.

One rainy evening, Leela was browsing through channels on the TV out of boredom. Suddenly, the lights went out. When the electricity was back from the generator, the TV turned on too. A news channel was broadcasting the insides of a space station. Leela was going to change the channel but something caught her eye. The sound of thunder roaring like a gigantic tiger startled Leela, making her drop her remote on the ground. Now she watched the TV with wide eyes.

There was a man with hair erect like he was electrocuted (because of lack of gravity) in the space station, on a video call with the news reporter. He had a certain boyish charm that made him look more like a shy student in school than an astronaut. The kind of student everyone finds adorable, even the bullies and teachers. Then he smiled ear to ear with his crooked central incisors at a lame joke the reporter made, and poor Leela forgot how to breathe. He rubbed his neck, clearly from nervousness. At that moment, she spotted a golden thread, its end disappeared behind the man's neck, because his hand was behind it. Tears poured from her eyes. Her heart raced momentarily like a steam engine, but it was then replaced with something warm like hot coals. It was the same warm feeling she felt on her forehead when Goddess Rati kissed it. Now, that warmth was all over her body like a blanket. She walked to the TV and sat down in front of the screen, smiling to herself. Many men made her heart race in the past. But this was different; of course, it was. This one felt right.

"This was our interview with Mridul-" and she had a power outage again when the reporter was announcing the astronaut's name. Leela grabbed her phone, switched on her mobile data, and searched for him on Instagram.

His name was Mridul, but she didn't know his surname. She didn't care. She would look for this boy even if it took the whole weekend. To her surprise, his name was the first in her search results. Leela was very careless in handling her social media accounts and never cared to see who followed her and who did not. And to put it even more simply, she lost her shit when she saw that Mridul had been following her Instagram account for three years. Leela took a deep breath.

And screamed.

She checked his account, and to her disappointment, saw only two pictures in his feed, one of which was his face, which was also his handle, and the other, his spacesuit. Not that she'd complain.

"He was right within reach all these years?! I'm gonna throw hands at this little monkey when I see him! I'm gonna break his bones with my dumbbells! I thought he was dead! Thank Gods and Goddesses!"

After a rather extremely long string of profanities flew from her mouth, Leela left for the gym at 4 am to let some steam off. Her gyms changed opening timings to 4:30 am every day but she wanted to have some time to herself before she'd go into work mode

All the adrenaline in her now spiked up for altogether another reason. She was alone in the building, and she heard footsteps behind her. She had heard of a few incidents of attempted sexual assault in this area, but this was the first time she witnessed it. Slowly, she dug her hand into her bag and pulled a dumbbell and a taser out. She would first attack him with the dumbbell, and while he was trying to dodge it, she would go at him with the taser.

She turned around and was met with a flashlight and a scream. The guy's phone fell to the floor and he was still screaming when her face was visible for a second from the lightning in the sky.

Now they both screamed.

"Who the hell are you?!" She ditched her previous plan and was ready to push the laser on his neck first.

"Who are you?!" He asked her in the dark while she heard gentle tapping sounds on the ground. He was looking for his phone.

"I'm the owner of this gym and if you don't leave this place, I will mash you up to a pulp. I took boxing lessons." Well, that was for 3 and a half months but she wouldn't tell him that now, would she? This was a lewd criminal.

"You don't look like an owner. You look like a homeless woman who hasn't slept in weeks with your messy hair and dark circles. I'm here because I want to join the gym."

"You look like a potential perpetrator who got arrested for sexual assault twice."

The sun was dawning from behind him. Any time now and she would see his face to remember it and describe him to the police if he tried anything nasty and ran away.

"Excuse you. I'm not a bad guy. I am an Engineering Consultant.”

She scoffed. "Engineering Consultant, my a-"

All words died down on her lips when the sun fully rose from behind this man's face.

Standing before her was the same man who had unintentionally made her cry an hour ago. Their thread almost glittered in the light of the sun. Both of them had astounded expressions on their faces.

"Mridul?"

"Leela?"

They said in unison.

"Don't sound dumb, don't sound dumb, don't sound dumb," Leela kept chanting in her head.

"You were supposed to be an astronaut. How come you're an EC?" She asked.

"Yeah I was an astronaut, but I came back a few months ago and I was offered a job after a couple of weeks. Can you not look at me like that? Your wide eyes are...."

"Scary?"

She wanted to sound confident but she didn't know when her eyes widened while looking at him.

He smiled a little. "A bit, yes. But it's a pretty kind of scary."

She didn't know how to respond but she did anyway.

"Pretty kind of scary? What is that supposed to mean?"

"It is what it is. A pleasure to meet you, Leela."

"It always is. Nice to meet you too."

"I had always wanted to join this gym, and meet you."

"Meet me? Why so?"

He sighed. "I don’t like beating around the bush. Do you believe in soulmates, Leela?"

Leela would rather tolerate a sudden earthquake than have her heart race like she's not 28 but 18 years old. She wanted to punch his teeth out and scream at his face about the golden thread they were tied to and flee this country at Godspeed. She couldn't do both, sadly.

"What do you think about soulmates, Mridul?"

"I think it's true. The whole concept, I mean. I don't want to sound like a stalker, but three years ago, I saw you at the café when you were rejecting someone's marriage proposal, I guess? It was purely coincidental. Three weeks later, my friend recommended I go to your gym and sent me your profile. I followed you on Instagram but you never noticed. Again I say, it was a coincidence."

"Where were you seated in the café?" She asked, clenching her fists. He was closer to her that day, but she still couldn't see him?

"Oh, I was behind you, in a diagonally arranged chair. Heard that guy asking you the same question, and you told him you thought so."

She did the math ASAP. No matter how close they were, their thread would always float in the sky, so the only way she could have spotted him was by turning around. Then it struck her. If she had turned around that day when Amog stopped her before she left, she could have seen him with the thread.

"And your point is?" Leela grew anxious and exhausted by the second.

"Do you believe that soulmates are connected by threads?"

Leela was ready to scream her brains out.

"Look, I will walk away right now if you tell me to, because I know I will sound like a creep. Would you believe me if I told you there's a red thread connecting people they're meant to spend their lives with?"

If he were anyone else, and if she couldn't see the threads, this boy would have been receiving hardcore thrashing while hung up-side-down naked by the police with heavy batons in a cell and she would have later thrown him in an asylum herself.

"These threads you talk about, do you see them?" She asked.

"You'll think I'm crazy, but I do."

Everything around her became hazy. She couldn't stand it anymore. Her knees gave out and she fell to the ground. The boy panicked.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry. You think I'm weird now. I knew this would happen. I’ll leave. I really just came here to join your gym and I didn't even know which branch you'd be at. I swear I'm not some delusional creep. I'll leave right now. I'll call the ambulance on my way out because I think you'll panic more if I come closer to you."

She wanted to laugh at this guy for thinking she's having a panic attack. She stopped him. Closure was very important to her.

"Wait, stop."

"Is there anything you want? Water? Medicine?"

He crouched to her level, being careful of touching her.

"No, just tell me this."

"Which is...?"

"If what you're saying is true, be honest. Who do you think my thread is connected to?" She

asked.

The boy's eyes welled with tears but he blinked them away before answering her.

"Umm, it's someone you don't know. I'm not sure really."

"Okay," Leela said trying not to cry herself. "But it can't be possible, right? Like, all the threads in the world in red? Pssh, impossible."

Mridul now looked like a student eager to answer the teacher with alert eyes and a chance to answer.

"I....you see....there's another color that exists...." He did that neck-rubbing thing again.

"And what's that color?"

Even while squatting on the ground with sweat dripping down her forehead and her bird-nest hair with a taser in one hand and a dumbbell in another, Leela tried to look cool, but by all means, she looked the polar opposite of it.

"Gold," His voice came out meek before he cleared his throat and responded again.

"Gold....is the color." His eyes trailed down her right pinky finger.

He heard a sniffing sound and looked up to see her crying.

"What's wrong? Did I scare you more? I'm so sorry." He was the one looking like he was having a panic attack.

"What color is yours?" Leela mustered the courage to ask him.

"That's what you are worried about? Are you sure you don't need a doctor?"

"Just tell me!" She yelled. He was startled.

Mridul was, is, since childhood, hypersensitive to sound. The face he made reminded her of her parents’ puppy that whined when he was getting his vaccine shots at the vet's clinic.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you like that. Please, tell me," Leela pleaded.

"Mine's gold," he quietly replied.

"So is mine," Leela couldn't hold it in anymore. She started to cry.

"What did you say?" Mridul thought he heard wrong.

"My thread is gold too, Mridul."

Mridul shook his head in denial.

"That can't be. You can't see-"

"I can see them. I see all of them. My thread, our thread hangs high up in the sky...."

"Beyond the clouds."

"Beyond the clouds."

They finished the rest of the sentence together. They cried together.

"I could see the threads since was born, never knew how to find the other end of it. All I knew was that it was high up. So one day, I thought, 'Why don't just go to the highest point of the thread if I can't bring it down?' And I studied a lot. Thankfully, I fulfilled my goal of becoming an astronaut a few years ago. I was almost sure I saw your thread at the café, but I couldn't believe my eyes, For once, I thought you were destined for someone else with a golden thread, but when I went up there, in space, I still couldn't find the upper curve of the thread, but did find out where the other part of the thread led to, on Earth, and never saw any other golden thread high up except for mine, and that's when realized, it was you," Mridul said.

For a split second, Leela's competitive side took dominance in her thoughts. 'This guy became a bloody astronaut so he could find his soulmate while I was complaining and crying for having this punishment? Rati, Rati, what the hell is this?'

"I could see these threads because I was a bitc- brat to a certain Goddess who punished me when I was 8 years old. But she's a cool lady. Kinda like an older sister with swag," Leela tried to make her story as meaningful as possible but seriously, who was she kidding? This dude's story was as gold as their thread no matter how hard she tried to polish that childhood episode in her thoughts.

Next time, if she was called the Ice Queen again, she wouldn't deny it.

"Oh, that's-that's a crazy story. But it's cool you got to see a Goddess. Must have been a great experience."

And he's also the see-the-bright-side-of-things kind of guy. Shit. Wow. Shwow.

"So, what happens to us now?" Mridul asked innocently while all Leela could do was observe the shape of his eyes. Yep, his droopy eyes looked a lot like those of her parents' puppy. Puppy eyes. Right, that's a thing. But why are his eyes like that by default? People make a puppy face, but this dude was born with it.

"Umm, Leela?"

"Uh? Right, us. What else, you sign up for my gym. That's what you came for here right?”

"Yeah!" he nodded earnestly.

"Then after you're done, we go grab a cup of coffee or tea or juice or vodka or whatever. You drink what you like and I drink what I like."

"Is...is this a-"

"Date? Yes, this is a date. We will date like normal people and see where this goes. I'm currently not looking for commitment because I'm like that. If you feel like backing out after a few dates, you're free to do so. Consent for men is as important as it is for women."

"Y-yes, of course. Whatever you say."

'Whatever you say...'

Leela liked the sound of that. A lot.

Then they went and did what she suggested. Leela was in the washroom, cleansing her face when Rati appeared suddenly from behind her dressed in a dark red maxi dress, scaring Leela.

"Why do you always have to pop up from behind me?"

"I like scaring you, teehee."

"You should have been the Goddess of mischief than of love. That would have suited you better."

"Oh come on now, don't be so sour in the morning. I see you found your golden boy huh? See what I did there?"

Leela tried her best not to grin and rolled her eyes.

"Young lady, you should thank me."

"What for?" Leela asked.

"I helped you find him."

"Yeah, as if."

"Still don't believe me? Even when the lights went off for three seconds in a building with a generator? How do you think his face popped up on the screen at the right time when the electricity returned?"

Leela's face was full of lather when she opened her eyes. Now her eyes burned.

"That was your doing? Oh, my eyes. Oww," Leela opened the tap and washed her face.

"Oh, poor child of mine. Would you like a face towel?" Goddess Rati asked her.

"Yes please."

"Then get one yourself. Brilliant idea, isn't it?"

"A marvelous idea. So innovative. Why couldn't I think of it earlier?"

"Okay, you can stop with the sarcasm now."

"Jokes apart, after all this time, why did you help me?" Leela found a towel and patted her face with it. "The pair with the golden thread in their previous life gave so much love to the world in charity and service that they ran out of interest and time to meet each other. It is a blessing and a curse. You had pure souls but cannot meet your soulmates. So this time, I tried to change the course of fate, and look, here we have the first golden-threaded pair to ever meet! When I saw you, I didn't expect to see the thread on you. I met the boy long before I met you when his mother was preggo with him. I blessed him. And later, I 'punished' you, You could say it was a blessing in disguise."

"You're saying we're the first pair who met each other? Nobody else with the golden thread ever met the other end of it?"

"Nope. There were only a few gold threads born for each century. You're the first one to have met each other."

"So, why did you help us of all people?"

"You were very upfront and slightly rude back then. Even now. But to me, the Goddess of Desire, you have given me what I most desired. Respect. You prayed to me even without knowing my identity and asked for help when I wasn't any of the popular Goddesses. I helped you, as they say in Loreal Paris advertisements, 'Because you're worth it'. This little incident will make my husband understand me too. Now, I shall free you first. The boy will lose it later. It's time I leave. Well, this was fun. See you in the afterlife. Once again, it was half nice meeting you, my dear Leela. Goodbye," and Rati vanished.

"It was half nice meeting you too, Goddess Rati," said Leela to the breeze where Rati stood a second ago, laughing at the memory from her first encounter with the Goddess.

Leela and Mridul decided to have their first date at a roadside tea and coffee vendor because only a fool would open a posh café at 6 in the morning when there are no customers.

"Would it be okay if held your hand?" Mridul asked Leela.

"Sure," she grabbed his palm as if she was holding a delicate dandelion and immediately relaxed when he gently squeezed his hand in hers. Then he stopped in his tracks looking at their hands and gasped. "What is it?" Leela asked.

She couldn't see the threads anymore. She thought she'd tell him after he couldn't see them too.

"Our thread fell from the sky. The length has diminished. The thread is like, 8 or 9 centimeters long now," He said with glee.

"l don't see them anymore. The Goddess released me from it. She also said you'd lose yours after a while."

"Is that so? Thank goodness she decided on that after I met you. Oh, wait, oh...."

"What now? Has it been cut-"

"It's red now. And it's slowly vanishing. Every other thread is vanishing. This...this is how our happy ending happens, isn't it?"

Leela would have to work so hard to get used to those puppy eyes.

"Ending? Oh please. This," she showed him their entwined hands and said, "Is just the beginning." Then Leela thought about it as they walked.

'Maybe red is not Such a bad color after all.'

You must be wondering who I am. Currently, I'm just the narrator of this Story. Now, I don't mean to brag, but some humans call me Brahma.